corn under row cover

Battle with the birds! I will have to replant the scarlet runner beans as the birds got the seedlings. The row cover I put on where I planted the seeds blew off and the birds were able to get to the seedlings before I could cover them again. Yum bean sprouts! Some of the winter squash seeds got picked out before it even germinated so I replanted that also.  Row cover is great stuff-it keeps birds, rabbits and bugs out, you can water through it,  it provides some shade protection from the UV rays here in Santa Fe at 7000 feet altitude and it helps against hail (unless it is huge) by diverting the hail from punching holes in big leaf plants like pumpkins and winter squash. I keep lightweight row cover (.03-.05) on until the plants start to flower and then you need to take it off for the pollinators to do their thing. As you can see in the picture I uncovered the corn seedlings which are under the row cover. The drip system is also under the row cover and the seedlings are coming up under it. After the seedlings are bigger, the birds won’t be interested and I will take it off. A friend of mine reported that her birds have even poked holes in her row cover-at least my birds haven’t figure out how to do that!